That does not mean we need a bigger bureaucracy. It means our ministers are drastically under-supported. In my experience, ministerial advisers are paid well below their public service counterparts, so even senior ministers end up relying on junior or early-career staffers who lack the seniority and institutional weight to challenge a department of thousands.<\/p>\n
A minister who cannot choose the chief executive of their ministry must at least be able to surround themselves with capable people. Our system denies them even that.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) reports to 20 different ministers across roughly 233 appropriations and budget categories in 23 portfolios. Nobody is clearly in charge. A Treasury review in 2024 confirmed what anyone looking at those numbers would suspect: coherent management is all but impossible.<\/p>\n
The system rotates chief executives between departments as though running the Department of Corrections were interchangeable with running the Ministry of Primary Industries. A chief executive can be halfway through a five-year term, still learning the basics, and already thinking about their next posting.<\/p>\n
In any private company, a board that treated institutional knowledge as dispensable would not last long. In government, it is standard practice.<\/p>\n
None of this was designed on purpose. The state sector reforms of 1988 put chief executives on fixed-term contracts to make them more accountable to ministers. Instead, it made them more accountable to the commissioner, who controls the reappointment process.<\/p>\n
Each subsequent reform insulated the bureaucracy further. Governments of all stripes have struggled with the consequences, but none has fixed the underlying problem.<\/p>\n
France, Germany, Sweden, Italy and Britain all give their ministers a say over who leads their departments. Elected ministers need people at the top who are committed to delivering the Government\u2019s programme.<\/p>\n
New Zealand is the odd one out, not because we made a deliberate choice but because we never revisited a choice made in 1988.<\/p>\n
In Germany, ministers appoint their top officials from a qualified pool. Ninety per cent of these appointments come from within the career service, not from party backrooms. When a new Government takes office, the incoming minister replaces the officials at the apex. Everyone else stays.<\/p>\n
The career service below is protected by statute, with permanent tenure and promotion based on merit.<\/p>\n
Germany adds a safeguard that New Zealand lacks. Career officials have a statutory duty to raise concerns when they believe an instruction is unlawful. The duty comes with defined escalation steps and legal protection against reprisal.<\/p>\n
Officials cannot be punished for speaking up. It is written into law, and German courts enforce it.<\/p>\n
Australia tried giving ministers appointment power without that safeguard. Officials could be hired and fired but had no duty to raise legal concerns and little real protection when they did.<\/p>\n
The result was Robodebt, a scheme that illegally raised debts against more than half a million people. Officials at every level either went along with it or looked the other way. Without guardrails, appointment power bred complicity rather than accountability.<\/p>\n
In my new research note, Who Runs the Country?, I examine three international models and argue that a version of Germany\u2019s approach fits New Zealand best.<\/p>\n
Ministers should appoint their chief executives from a qualified pool, with the career service protected by statute beneath them. Officials need a legal obligation to raise concerns when something is wrong, and legal protection when they do.<\/p>\n
No company would let an outside commissioner choose its CEO, staff its leadership team with generalists on rotation, and expect the board to deliver results from a building across town. Yet that is precisely what we ask of our ministers.<\/p>\n
Voters did not elect the Public Service Commissioner. They elected a Government, and they are entitled to expect it can govern.<\/p>\n